


Mac Gets Sick

by goddammit_charlie



Category: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
Genre: Depraved, M/M, as in ill, not like, sick
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-05
Updated: 2015-04-05
Packaged: 2018-03-21 08:28:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,854
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3685278
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goddammit_charlie/pseuds/goddammit_charlie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mac's ill. Dennis tries to be helpful.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mac Gets Sick

Something didn’t feel right from the moment Dennis opened his eyes that morning. He rolled over to check the clock on his nightstand – 10:30am. After two decades of living together, he and Mac have built their lives on a foundation of well-worn routine and habit, and he soon realised why things felt off this morning – he doesn’t remember being half-woken by the sound of the shower. Mac is always up at least a couple of hours before him, and Dennis is used to the distant rush of water bringing him to groggy consciousness for a moment before he pulls his blanket around himself and goes back to sleep. Did Mac stay out last night? No, he remembered, they’d stayed in and Mac had gone to bed early complaining of a headache. He frowned and pushed back the sheets, swinging his bare legs out into the chilly air.

He paused before opening Mac’s bedroom door. Should he knock? It’s not like his roommate has company over, and if he catches him providing his own “company”, well, it wouldn’t be the first time. He smirked at the thought and pushed the door open without knocking.

“Hey dude, what’re you… Oh Christ.” Dennis stared in open disgust. Mac’s head was only just visible, the rest of him buried beneath what must have been every blanket he could find in the apartment, and he still seemed to be shivering regardless. His hair had taken on a life of its own, standing up in fluffy disarray, and discarded tissues littered the bed and the floor. He raised his head slightly and squinted at Dennis silhouetted in the doorway.

“Hey man,” he croaked painfully. “I think I’m sick.”

* * *

Dennis was still glaring silently, lip curled in horror, as Mac sniffed and dragged himself up into a sitting position. A minor avalanche of balled-up tissues fell from the bed as he shifted beneath the blankets. He began to yawn but it turned into a hacking cough that rivalled even his mom’s best efforts. Dennis turned away, sickened, as Mac hacked up what sounds like the entire contents of his lungs, and was about to leave and close the door behind him when Mac choked out an indistinct question.

“What was that?” Dennis reluctantly turned back to face the bed.

“I said please could you bring me some water? And some painkillers if we have any. Everything hurts,” Mac groaned.

Dennis rolled his eyes and headed to the kitchen to fill a glass. He crossed the small apartment to the bathroom and rummaged in the cabinet. It is well stocked with condoms and a couple of varieties of lube (in case the supplies in Dennis’s nightstand run low), and he found the bottle of pills the shrink had given him when he was hilariously misdiagnosed with some kind of personality disorder – he pushed these to the back of the cabinet with somewhat more force than is necessary – and finally he came across a bottle of aspirin. He was about to bring these to Mac when another bottle caught his eye. He’s not sure how long it had been there – the label has been torn off so all that remains is the warning along the bottom: “Keep out of reach and sight of children. Do not exceed the recommended dose.” He popped off the cap and shook a few pills into his hand. He thought he remembered these now – they must be the painkillers Dee was given when she cracked her ribs falling off a ladder at that Chinese fish factory. He remembered swiping them from her purse, hoping he could use them to fuzz his brain a little on days when everything seemed too intense, but he’d left them in here and forgotten about them. Placing the aspirin back in the cupboard, he pocketed the other pill bottle and headed back to Mac’s room.

“Thanks man” Mac rasped, wincing slightly as he gulped down a couple of pills. “My throat is like, I think I swallowed glass or something.”

“You need to learn to master your body,” Dennis declared, bringing the wastepaper basket from the corner of the room to collect some of the less gross-looking tissues. “If you had as much control over your body as I do, you would be fine right now.”

“Dude,” his roommate protested, “last time you got sick I had to carry you to the ER. You were on an IV for three days!”

Dennis chose not to dignify this with a response, and crossed the room to open the curtains and let some daylight in. Mac squinted and groaned. In the harsh white light he did look awful. Dennis softened slightly.

“I’m going to get some breakfast. Do you want anything, or…?”

Mac shook his head and coughed again.

“No thanks. I think I’m gonna go back to sleep for a while.”

* * *

Dennis made himself some coffee and toast, ate it while watching some shitty cable sitcom, then had a shower and got dressed. He wandered around the apartment for a little while, moving things from one place to another in a half-hearted imitation of tidying, occasionally stopping to listen intently for a sign that Mac had woken up. Eventually he opened the bedroom door again to check, but Mac was still fast asleep. He put the TV on again and soon grew bored and switched it off. When he checked Mac for the second time and found him still dead to the world, he noticed that the box of tissues on his nightstand was almost finished. He decided to make a trip to the store – maybe by the time he got back Mac would be awake.

  
At the drugstore, Dennis grabbed a couple of boxes of tissues and then wandered around the aisles looking at the different cold and flu remedies. He approached the pharmacist’s counter to ask what was best for sore throats and disgusting coughs, but the pharmacist turned her back on him and refused to respond to his questions. What a bitch, he thought. Hot, though. Eventually he chose a bottle of cough syrup, grabbed some more condoms on the way past (you could never be too prepared) and headed for the checkout.

As soon as he got home he could tell Mac was awake – the sound of his rasping cough could be heard from outside the front door of the apartment. Dennis let himself in and headed to Mac’s room to show him his purchases. His timing was perfect – Mac was sitting up and loudly blowing his nose on his last remaining tissue when Dennis entered.

“Hey-ohhh!” Dennis perched on the edge of the bed, wriggling his bony hips into Mac’s side until he moved over to make room for him to sit comfortably.

“Hey Dennis,” Mac replied sleepily. “Those painkillers are good, man. I mean, I still feel like shit, but now I’m like… fuzzy…” He closed his eyes and let his head drop back against the wall with a light thud. Dennis snickered and twisted round to pull the cushions up behind his friend.

“I’m glad they’re helping. Here, I got you these.” He upturned the pharmacy bag, scattering its contents on the bed. Mac opened his eyes and pulled himself upright again to look.

“Thanks, bro.” He stacked the tissue boxes and cough syrup on his nightstand, then held up the condoms and raised a questioning eyebrow.

“Oh, they’re mine!” Dennis laughed, stuffing them into his pocket.

“You think you’re gonna get laid in a plague house?” Mac grinned, and blew his nose again.

“You’ve got a cold, dude, you’re not dying. Anyway, never underestimate how quickly I can burn through a box of these. It’s always good to have spares.”

“I dunno how you can stand ‘em,” Mac yawned.

“Your refusal to use condoms would be gross if you ever actually had sex.” Dennis prepared to take a punch for this, but Mac didn’t seem to have processed his comment. He was staring into space, apparently deep in thought. Dennis watched him zone out for a moment, moving his eyes from his shock of thick fluffy hair, down his pale sleep-lined face, over the dark stubble on his cheeks, to his lips which were twisted as he chewed the bottom one thoughtfully. Dennis found himself biting his own bottom lip in an unconscious reflection of his friend. He looked away quickly and hopped off the bed.

“Can I get you some like, soup or something?” His voice sounded unnaturally high to his own ears but Mac didn’t notice, just nodded without taking his eyes off whatever imaginary fixed point they were staring at.

After finding a tin of chicken soup at the back of one of the cupboards and heating it in the microwave, Dennis returned to Mac’s room with the hot bowl in one hand, a plate of toast in the other and a tub of ice cream held in the crook of his elbow.

“I wasn’t sure whether your throat would feel better from something hot or cold, so I brought both.”

Mac was dozing again, and Dennis placed the food on the cluttered nightstand and gently shook him awake with a soft “hey”. Mac opened his eyes to see Dennis’s face a few inches from his own, and smiled. “Hey.”

Dennis climbed back onto the bed and passed the bowl of soup across, wrapping his own hands around the bowl on top of Mac’s until he was sure Mac wasn’t going to drop it. If he felt a flush of heat, an electric crackle, it was only the heat of the soup, or Mac’s fever. Nothing more.

As if reading his mind, Mac shivered.

“Dude, your hands are freezing.”

“Sorry.” Dennis drew his hands back and rubbed them together. They were always cold. All of him was always cold. Almost always.

“No man, it’s good. C’mere.” Mac set the soup down on his lap and took Dennis’s hands in his own. He drew them to his face and laid them across his cheeks. “That’s better,” he grinned.

Mac’s face felt red hot against Dennis’s palms. Dennis moved his thumb slightly, brushing it against the dark stubble of Mac’s chin. Mac turned his head a little and now Dennis’s thumb grazed his lip. He leaned into it, pressed his fevered face against the cool palm, and Dennis knew that this wouldn’t be happening if Mac wasn’t half-stoned, knew it didn’t count, but even as he commanded himself to stop, he found himself leaning forward. Pull yourself together NOW, he told himself, but he felt Mac’s burning forehead against his, felt their noses bump together, and then there was the soft brush of lips…

“Oh shit!” Mac leapt from the bed, tripping over the blankets tangled around his legs and falling to the ground, cursing and kicking at the bedclothes. “Shit!”

Dennis was too stunned to move for a moment, still pressing his lips into the thin air where Mac had been, and then he felt a scalding heat on his leg and saw the pool of spilled soup spreading across the bed.

“Shit!”


End file.
